


each time i think i'm close to knowing

by nosecoffee



Series: our hearts break 'cause i got lost [3]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Angst, Bad Parenting, Bittersweet Ending, Canon Compliant, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Larry's trying his best, Larry-centric, Post canon, Pre Canon, Recreational Drug Use, Teen Pregnancy, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-01-14 23:27:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18486613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: (he keeps on growing and slipping through my fingers, all the time)~He suddenly laughs a bit, smiling. Larry hasn't seen Connor laugh in probably years. “God, you're so drunk.” He says, and pokes Zoe’s shoulder. She swats at him.“Connor.” She says, and her tone is serious. “Are you okay?”“No. But neither are you right now.” Connor’s mood refuses to sober. “Come on, let me walk you to your room.”





	each time i think i'm close to knowing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PrinceDrew](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceDrew/gifts).



> Title from “Slipping Through My Fingers” by ABBA
> 
> As always, biggest, most meaningful thanks to Drew (@PrinceDrew) for their continuing support and encouragement. Completing this series took nearly a year, and I literally could not have finished it without you. <3

He's knocking on her window and trying to keep his grip on the roof tiles outside her room. The house is old enough that Larry would not be surprised in the least if one of them slipped free and sent him hurtling to his death, into the unruly rose bushes that line Heidi’s backyard.

But Heidi’s reliable - and a bit predictable, too - and, only a moment later, she's sliding her window open, peering out at him with an unimpressed look on her face. “Can I help you, sir?” She asks, sarcastically, and quirks her mouth up into that fake smile she uses at work. This one is a little more real than the others, so he smiles back, genuinely.

Larry wiggles his eyebrows. “Mind letting me inside?” He asks, almost like they’re chatting at the drive-thru, like they’ve done so many times before, back when she was still working at McDonalds, and they’re about to be scolded by a hungry middle aged man in a fancy car or Heidi’s manager. “I'm kind of fearing for my life, out here.”

“Mmm, that's not on the menu today, sir.” Heidi informs him faux-gravely. “Can I suggest using the front door? That's a customer favourite.”

“Heidi,” he whines, almost pouting. She hates it when he pouts, says he has more power than any man should posses when he pouts. “Please?”

She rolls her eyes and steps away from the open window, allowing him space to climb through, making sure to not make too much noise as he enters. “You're being bossy, tonight.” Heidi comments, sleepily, letting go of her workers façade. “Special reason why you decided to bitch your way into my room in the middle of the night?”

Instead of answering, he pulls the plastic baggie out of his jacket pocket and holds it out for Heidi to inspect. Her eyes widen as she takes in its contents. “Larry Murphy,” Heidi scolds, but she's most of the way to laughing, too, “you did not buy weed.”

He grins at her. “Heidi Hansen, I sure did.” He laughs back.

“Where did you even get this?” Heidi asks, poking the bag with her index finger. Larry pulls it away as if it were poisonous, shaking his head.

“You wouldn't believe me if I told you.” She shushes him, still smiling, pressing the flat of her palm, lightly, over his mouth.

“You’re gonna wake up my dad.” She giggles. They’re fifteen, but his birthday is coming up, and he’s been using that as leverage for weeks.

Larry scoffs. “Yeah, because Scott Hansen, chillest dad in the universe, is gonna lose his shit over ten dollars worth of weed.” He says, pulling her hand from his mouth, but not releasing it. “Besides, think of this as an early birthday present.”

“Like the chips I gave you yesterday? And skipping my shift last Friday?” Heidi asks, taking her hand, gently, from his, to place it on her hip. She’s every bit the picture of the excited yet reluctant girl next door. Except that she’s not next door, she’s across the road. “I’m beginning to think you’re deliberately trying to get me in trouble, Larry.”

“What can I say?” He shrugs, and grins like the wolf would when he led little girls with good intentions from the path. “I like leading you astray.”

~

She does end up sneaking out with him - through the front door, so that Larry doesn’t try climbing her rose trellis, again, and end up slipping in the overfull gutter. They ride their bikes out of town to the apple orchard that’s technically closed right now. The fences are scarily easy to jump, though they don’t stay in the orchard part of the orchard for very long.

They end up high on the hill, overlooking the creek below and the forest beyond. Larry’s dreamed, since he was a little boy, of running away in that forest. It looks so ethereal, and stretches out further than his eyes can see.

He’s never rolled a joint before, but with their combined efforts and Heidi’s huffing laughter in the background, they end up with a half-decent roll, and using a lighter Larry stole from Liam Howard in their last chem class, they light up and try to get high.

It doesn’t feel like much at first, and because neither of them have smoked before, there’s quite a bit of coughing. They seem to get the hang of it around when they stub the tiny joint out in the grass. Heidi seems to get hit with the high, first. Her eyes kind of glaze over, and she starts giggling, uncontrollably. Larry can’t help but join in.

It’s a quick progression to talking nonsense, attempting and failing cartwheels, and then falling over and lying in the grass. Heidi’s hair is spread out beneath her head like a halo. She looks a bit like an angel.

He'd never tell her he thought that, because she'd accuse him of lying. Heidi’s never believed she's worth that kind of attention.

“What if this is all that there is?” He asks, suddenly, staring up at the light-polluted sky. Larry’s suddenly full of existential dread, terrified that he's wasting his time.

“What?” Heidi replies, and he sees her twist to look at him out of the corner of his eye.

“What if we stay in this town forever?” He reiterates and sits up. Heidi stares up at him, a vague look on her face. “What if all we ever do is sneak out windows?”

“We’ll be adults, soon, Larry.” She informs him, lazily blinking. “We won't be sneaking out _anywhere_.”

“What if this is all of the world we’ll ever see?” Larry questions, gesturing around them as if the Orchard doesn't look grand to him, right now. “Heidi, we’ve got to get out!”

She cocks her head to the side, moving as though she wants to sit up but he reads too heavy. “Why would we do that?” She asks, and scrunches her nose.

He leans back on his hands, feet folded underneath him like a child. “Because I don't want to be here my entire life.” He admits.

“You won't be. Knowing you, you'll turn eighteen and be on the first plane out of here.” She waves a hand at the sky, lazily, like she's tracing the course of a plane that's being flown by a toddler.

“Not without you.” Larry insists, biting his lip as soon as the words leave his tongue. That's too much, way too much.

At this, she frowns, “What makes you think I'd ever make it anywhere?” Heidi sits up, finally, and turns to face him, the collar of her blue sleeveless button up sagging.

“You're smart and gorgeous.” He tells her, leaning forward, off his hands, towards her. She sways back and gets a mouthful of hair in return. “You'd blow everyone away with your brains, and then they'd all fall for you.”

“Oh, stop it.” She laughs and shoved him away, hard, hard enough to almost send him rolling down the hill if she hadn't grabbed him at the last second, halting his rolls.

“It's true.” Larry says. She looks different upside down. “Heidi, when I get out, you've got to come with me.”

“And go where?” Heidi asks, looking lost, looking away from him, out over the field below them, towards the creek, and the wire fence beyond the forest that flows out as far as the eye can see.

“Anywhere.” He dreams of running between trees, nettles getting caught in his shoelaces, branches scratching at his arms, rain dotting his hair. But he also dreams that their hands are linked together when they run, because he'd never have the guts to run without Heidi at his side. She'd never do it, though. “We could go to New York, or LA, or England!”

“Why England?” Heidi laughs.

“Why not?” Larry scrambles back up to the flat top of the hill beside her, so that she's not distorted upside down, again. “Heidi, we could go _anywhere_ at all.”

“And what's so wrong with staying here?”

“I know here like the back of my hand.” Larry tells her, and Heidi lies down, on her side, gazing up at him, so Larry follows her lead. “I know every step on your staircase that will creak, I know every pothole on the road to the drive in, and I know every ice cream flavour at Á La Mode.” It's too much, for a second. He pauses, even though he knows she's hanging on every word. “I know everything too well. It's time for me to learn all about something else.”

Heidi smiles, but it's pained, as if she gets it, but she doesn't have that option. “Big plans, huh?” She says, as if those plans don't include her.

“Sure.”

“Mine are so small.” She's so beautiful in this light. But then again, she's always beautiful. Larry’s always thought so. Always thought that maybe one day he'd ask her to marry him. And Heidi - Heidi’s always said he deserved someone better - but Heidi would smile, ruefully, at him and tell him all the reasons it's a bad idea. And then she'd say yes.

Larry’s so busy thinking about all of this, he doesn't realise how close they are until he can smell her breath. It's gross, but it's Heidi, and she's staring at him. It must hurt, keeping eye contact this close. Doesn't it hurt?

“Not really.” She breathes, and Larry realises he said that out loud. Heidi laughs, and then she leans a bit closer. Their noses are touching, and her eyes are closed.

It's almost laughably easy, pressing their lips together.

~

Heidi’s dad looks nothing like her. Where she's blonde and blue eyed and lightly freckled when she doesn't bother with the thin layer of makeup she uses to cover them up, her father is dark haired, brown eyed, and covered in freckles.

Her mom died when they were young, but there are photos littered all over the house, and she looks almost exactly the same as Heidi, now, except for her fair and unblemished skin. Scott Hansen gazes at those photos longingly every so often, and Larry feels for him.

No one deserves to lose the person they love.

He doesn't seem to know that Larry led his daughter astray, the next day, even if he is surprised to find Larry sleeping on her bedroom floor, in the morning. Larry guesses he should be thankful that Scott trusts him like that. Any other girl's father would probably have been furious to find a boy in their daughter's room, even if nothing had happened.

And nothing did happen. Not really. Larry had kissed her, and Heidi had pushed him onto his back and kissed him, sitting on his stomach, but a little after that they decided to go home. And Heidi doesn't mention it at any point when they're alone the next day, so Larry just assumes they won't talk about it.

He and Heidi have been through more. A kiss isn't going to ruin things.

~

Alice Kleinman bumps her elbow into his ribs and when Larry looks over to shoot a glare at her, she rolls her eyes and hands him a folded note. Alice Kleinman kind of looks like a mix of Wednesday Addams and Harry Potter, but permanently scowling and wearing suspenders.

Larry unfolds the note and makes a show of resting his arm on the desk to obscure any vision Alice would have of the note.

Heidi’s not one to deliberately make trouble, but ever since the night near his birthday where they got high and kissed in the orchard, she's been a little more outgoing. She passes notes in classes, she stays over at his house more, lets him stay over more, sneaks out at night with him, giggles a little too much with him at work, ignoring her managers glares.

He unfolds the note. There's a crude drawing of their teacher with a bigger forehead than he truly has, and Larry has to stifle his laughter. Alice Kleinman glances over at him, again. She's so nosy. He has no idea why Heidi likes her.

 _Maybe Heidi doesn't like her at all,_ Larry thinks. _Maybe Heidi likes Steven._

The thought makes him sigh, the note folded up once again and slid into a page in his American History textbook. Sure, he gets Steven’s attractive - in a strictly aesthetic way, and no other way - but he's not all there. The amount of times Larry’s had to repeat something he's said to him is off the charts. And it's not because Steven is dumb, he's a good student, he just doesn't like paying attention.

So why waste attention on someone who'd rather be anywhere where you are?

Alice Kleinman is dating him, and god knows how that came about, so maybe Heidi puts up with her to get closer to Steven. Larry would hate that if it were true. He sends back some drawings of flowers, no way to really respond.

~

Everything changes with Cynthia. And of course it would. Cynthia has an air of change around her. Her soft brown eyes promise comfort, her hair a sharp blade to cut away the past, her smile something soft to land on.

Larry could kiss Heidi for introducing him to her, and he has sweaty hands when he asks Cynthia out, but she says yes, anyway. He has sweaty hands on their first few dates, and stutters through conversations, too nervous to be his usual suave self. Heidi punches him in the shoulder when he asks her if she think he and Cynthia will last.

“Through sea and storm, my friend.” She says, and then ruffles his hair. “I'll bet you you'll marry her.”

The night of the drive-in, he's nervous. His arm is thrown over the back of her seat, hand drooping over her shoulder, and he's pretending to listen to whatever the character on screen is saying. He's not.

Eventually, Cynthia turns to look at him, eyes shining, grin sparkling. “What?” He asks, softly.

“Will you kiss me?” She asks, in response. That's Cynthia. She looks prim and demure, but she's always the first to take the lead on something. He doesn't even know if she knows.

~

Larry thinks he maybe missed something.

Everything is going well; his grades are up, he and Cynthia are going strong, the future looks bright. The only thing is that Heidi seems to be pulling away.

No one but Larry would really notice. Larry’s known her for long enough to catch her smiles that are faked, to hear the choking in her laughter, to feel her grip on him beginning to slip. Maybe her dad would notice too, but he's working all the time, and Heidi’s said before that she sees less and less of him as time goes on.

He feels her slipping away, and for that reason he only holds her tighter.

Larry invites her to parties, and to study sessions with Cynthia. He invites her to drive-in nights and nights at the arcade, meets up with her between classes and eats lunch with her in the library as often as possible, even if they're not supposed to.

He can't lose her, truly, he can't. If he lost Heidi what would be left of him?

Which is how they all end up at a Fourth of July party, the summer before their senior year, and that's how they all end up chugging beers by the pool. Cynthia’s having fun, swaying with an arm around Larry’s shoulders, kissing him every so often, her lips stinging with alcohol. Heidi’s never been drunk before, and it shows.

At the point at which Cynthia accidentally shoves him into the pool, Larry’s so preoccupied, he doesn't notice Heidi’s disappeared from sight. He doesn't notice when she comes back, looking ruffled and dizzy, her lips kiss-swollen, he doesn't notice at all, because he's kissing Cynthia, and four drinks deep, and floating, fully clothed in the pool. Watching the fireworks like he's never seen them before.

He doesn't notice anything for so long. Larry hates himself for it, later.

~

Larry wants to scream. He's sitting outside Heidi’s bathroom, listening to her choke, face in the toilet. They're supposed to be going to Cynthia's picnic today, yet another scheme to socialise with Heidi, more often, this time Cynthia’s idea. But they're not, because Heidi’s vomiting, again.

When she quiets down, he knocks, softly, on the door. “Heidi? Can I come in?”

It takes a bit for her to respond, and when she does, he winces, hearing how raw it is. “You should go on without me. I'll be there soon.”

“I told you, I'm driving you there,” he reminds her, hand on the handle, unwilling to twists it open without her permission. “And there’s no way you are walking all the way to the orchard in this heat.”

The door opens, and she steps out, looking worse for wear. There's some smudged tear tracks on her face. She looks tired.

“Are you okay?” Larry asks, immediately. She's been so quiet lately, he can never tell what's happening in her small part of the world, because she keeps all of it wrapped up right in her head. “You can tell me if you're not. If you’re not up for this, I'll just tell Cynthia to cancel.”

“No, no, you don't have to do that.” She assures him, looming frantic. “I just…it's stupid, really.”

Larry draws on nearly eighteen years of friendship, and lays a hand on her inner elbow. “What is it?” He asks her, and watches Heidi’s breath shudder out of her.

“I,” she begins and breaks off, obviously finding it hard. He squeezes her arm, gently and she swallows. “I need to go and buy a pregnancy test.”

Larry tries not to stagger back with wide eyes like a scorned silent movie actress. Heidi still flinches at his muffled half-gasp.

“Don't-” she begins and then laughs, humourlessly. “Don't ask any questions, okay? I just need - I just need to-”

“No, I get it, it's fine.” He says, shaking the shock out of his head, shaking away all the questions that immediately flood in, all the thoughts that say he's a moron. “No questions asked.”

“You can ask me anything you want, just after I know. Okay?” He nods in agreement, unsure as to why she would know he'd do anything for her. “I have to know, for sure.”

Larry walks with her to the local CVS because she won't let him drive her there. She needs a moment to be in limbo, she explains. And then he waits on the other side of the bathroom door when they get back to his house, waiting for the biological verdict. And then he holds her while she cries when it turns out positive.

He's a bit ashamed that he doesn't wait long after that to start asking questions.

~

No sooner has the dust settled on Heidi’s abrupt disappearance from school - her pregnancy common knowledge to the entire town, the entire student body - that suddenly Heidi is crying on the other side of his front door, asking for a ride to the hospital, early in the morning.

Larry barely has time to ask her way. He presses a hand to her stomach, only to have it swatted away. He ushers her into the emergency room, begging her to tell him what’s happening. But then she tells him to leave as soon as she's inside.

“Go home, Larry. I don't need you, right now.” Larry stares at her, slack-jawed in the entrance. Heidi’s bloodshot eyes flare. “Go _home.”_

Against his better judgement, he does.

(A day later he finds out her father died in a hit-and-run incident. The day after that, he stands beside her at Scott’s funeral, braces an arm against her shoulders as she shakes, her father’s coffin being lowered into the same grave that belongs to her mother.)

(Heidi is morose at the wake, but she smiles for a moment when he hands her a cupcake and a cup of orange juice.)

(She says, “Cynthia looks good in black.”)

~

Cynthia held Heidi in the backseat while Larry sped to the hospital. When he drives Cynthia home only a few hours later, he finds blood soaking the seats. He has to have the interior of his car dry cleaned to get it out, but he doesn't tell Heidi that.

The nurse tells them she's asleep when they ask to see her, after the birth of her son, but Larry knows her too well to believe that. But he'll respect her decision.

The next morning, he goes straight to the hospital, and finds Heidi eating breakfast, looking gaunt, a baby in a white blanket in a crib by her bed. She wiggles her eyebrows at him, but he can see the exhaustion in her feature, deep set into her skin.

They talk about nothing for a while, and then she tells him it's okay to hold the baby. He doesn't even stir, even as he fumbles holding him a bit. He apologises over his shoulder to Heidi, but she just shrugs.

“He won't notice,” she tells him in her hoarse voice. According to one of her nurses, she damaged her vocal cords just a bit with all her screaming. Apparently she had a hard labour. “He's a baby.”

Larry sits on the edge of her bed, holding the little boy. His cheeks are scattered with freckles, and his eyes, when they flutter open, as infrequent as it is, are the same brown as Heidi’s. “He got a name, yet?” Larry asks.

Heidi snorts. “Nup. I was thinking about it all the time before he was born, but now…” she trails off. “You know, my dad should have been here, too. He should've met this one.”

Larry can't take a hand away from the hold, for fear of dropping the baby, so instead he leans into Heidi, into her shoulder. She wraps an arm around his chest, her forearm pressing against the blanket wrapped around her baby.

“What if you name him Scott?” Larry suggests, quietly.

Heidi chuckles, and it sounds wet. She's probably crying. She doesn't like it when he sees her cry, she never had. “God, dad’d hate that.”

Larry huffs, “What about as a middle name?”

“Yeah, totally. Now my baby has a middle name and a surname. Something Scott Hansen.” She releases him to shake her fists in faux encouragement. “Go my nameless baby.”

He rolls his eyes, watching the baby’s face as it yawns. He very carefully ignores the way she angrily wipes her eyes. “I'm sure you'll come up with something.” Larry tells her.

Heidi takes the baby from his arms, holding him in a precisely careful way. “Your faith in me is misguided.” She informs him, oh so matter-of-fact.

“I sincerely doubt that.” He replies, eyeing her crooked smile directed at the baby.

~

He doesn't know at what point she finally names her baby. Maybe it's around the time he decides to propose to Cynthia after graduation. All he knows is that one day she starts calling him Evan, and Larry knows. He doesn't ask, because he knows she'd hate it.

~

He thinks everything is okay. He gets married, and everything is perfect.

He is blind.

~

It's too much, it's just too much. But he can't stop. In his head, the plane’s already landed and he's already running to catch a taxi, even though it’s the middle of the fucking night.

This can't be happening. Not to Heidi, not to him. They were forever and invincible and always. Not this. Never this. Not that tired and angry tone in his voicemail, not _I know I'm just fucking this all up, but I'm going to kill myself, Larry._

He remembers the night they'd snuck out her window and smoked weed in the orchard in the middle of the night.

“What makes you think I'll ever do anything worthwhile?” She'd asked then, and now Larry wonders if she knew. This whole time, had she known?

He's shuffling in his seat and the woman beside him looks annoyed. Larry doesn't have it in him to explain to her, and she probably doesn't deserve it, either. All that matters now is Heidi.

He prays she’ll put it off a little longer.

~

Larry scrubs the blood out of her bathtub hoping it'll be enough for forgiveness. He's numb, right now. Even though she's out of harm's way, even though she's home, she's about to go onto antidepressants, even though she's sitting on the couch, just outside, talking with Cynthia about going into counselling, Larry’s almost certain she'll fade away at any moment.

Which isn't to say that when she's out of sight for a second he worries he imagined getting to her in time (even though that's true). It's just that when he found her, she wasn't even conscious anymore. She wasn't really there, even though he kicked down her bathroom door and carried her out to the ambulance he called from the airport. Heidi wasn't there until a nurse walked out to where he was sitting, wringing his hands, in the waiting room and told him she was going to make it.

Larry’s afraid that once he's scrubbed the blood from the every surface in the bathroom, he'll turn and she'll be gone.

He couldn't stand it if it were true.

So Larry scrubs harder and tries not to listen to the way Heidi rasps her answers to Cynthia’s soft questions in the next room.

~

Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't.

All Larry knows is that Heidi fades very slowly from his world.

He thinks she says something about Steven not liking the amount of time she spends time with Larry. He thinks she's making a mistake by staying with Steven. He doesn't tell her that.

One minute she's there. The next it's like she was never there in the first place.

He's living in a different house on the entire other sid elf town. He has work a fifteen minutes drive away. He and Cynthia are expecting their son (they’re going to name him James after Larry’s father and Connor after Cynthia’s grandfather) and they're happy, and Heidi has disappeared from their lives just as well as if she'd perished in that bathtub, Larry too late to save her.

~

Cynthia withdraws after the birth of their daughter. Maybe that's why Larry holds Zoe so often, to make up with how Cynthia nearly refuses to hold her at all. Connor’s barely old enough to understand what it means to have a sister, but he nods as if he does understand after all, when Larry tells him to be careful.

Connor’s a good child. He didn't cry all that much when he was younger, and within five weeks, he was sleeping through the night. Cynthia and Larry didn't know any better than to take it for granted. Zoe screams through the night, and it takes ages for her to sleep in her crib, instead of pillowed between her parents.

~

Larry buys Connor and Zoe a remote control plane to play with at the orchard. Cynthia’s thinking of moving. His firm has an opening two county’s over, and Cynthia’s been looking very seriously at the real estate there.

“It won't bother the kids,” she tells him, nonchalantly, “Connor’s only been in school for a couple of years. Maybe moving towns will help him make some friends.”

He and Cynthia are trying to talk about a potential house when Zoe starts complaining about Connor not letting her have a go with the plane.

“Connor, give your sister a turn,” he says, offhandedly.

“The yard is so large, Larry,” Cynthia continues, making another sandwich. They've made it a tradition to come to the orchard once every spring. “The kids will have so much room to run around and play.”

“It's my turn!” Zoe insists.

Cynthia waves a dismissive hand, and the toy plane buzzes over their heads, “The kitchen’s a hideous shade of blue, but with-”

“Connor, give it!” Their daughter shrieks, chasing after her brother, dirtying up the pretty purple dress Cynthia dressed her in, earlier.

“-a little paint it'll be palatable.” His wife continues.

“Daaaaad!” Zoe screeches.

Larry sighs and turns to look at them, shooting Connor a warning look, before yelling, “Connor, I won't warn you again!”

“I've had it for like five seconds!” Connor protests, holding the controller out of Zoe’s reach as she tries to climb him.

“You heard your father, Connor!” Cynthia shouts to him, her tone sweet.

“Gimme a sec!” His son yells, again, and runs, Zoe giving chase, one more.

“James Connor Murphy! Don't make me confiscate it!”

“Give it here!”

Zoe tackles Connor into the grass, and Larry and Cynthia are on their feet immediately. Cynthia tugs Zoe off of Connor and carries her back over to the picnic blanket, reprimanding her. Larry rips the control out of Connor’s grip, and in the process hits a lever that makes the buzzing thing fly straight down into the creek.

Zoe screams and starts crying, blubbering about her not getting to have a turn. Connor, on his knees, gives his sister agravely guilty look, then gets to his feet and dives into the creek after it.

Now Cynthia screams.

Larry stands on the bank, waiting for Connor to resurface. Five seconds later when he doesn't, he swears and wades in after him, splashing and calling his sons name.

He fishes the boy out of a bunch of reeds, and by the time he smacked all the water out of his lungs, he registers the blood trickling out of his hair.

Cynthia speeds them to the hospital. Connor says nothing.

~

He has the orchard closed down. He has the money for that. Cynthia screams that getting rid of the stupid place won’t help their son who hasn’t spoken since the accident.

He wonders what Heidi will think when she hears. He makes sure that his name isn't mentioned in the papers when the news comes out. He doesn't really want anyone to know what he did in the red of his anger.

When they’re eating dinner alone, because Cynthia’s taken Connor to another doctor about his muteness, Zoe asks him why Connor doesn’t want to play with her, anymore.

“Connor’s having a tough time right now,” Larry grits out, “he’ll play with you again when he’s better.”

Zoe frowns, “But when will he be better?”

Larry doesn’t have the heart to tell her he doesn’t know. He just smiles thinly at his daughter and says, “Soon.”

~

Seven hospital visits and ten years later, Connor is not better. If the way he frequently loses his shit at all of them is anything to go by, he doesn't know how to get better.

More than that, Larry has no idea how to help him.

~

Connor’s standing on the porch, jacket wrapped around him tightly. His breath looks more like cigarette smoke it's so cold. Larry doesn't know why he's out here.

“Done schmoozing?” Connor grits out, conversationally.

Larry frowns, and wonders, fleetingly, if it would be a bad parenting move to hand his son his glass of wine. He's sixteen, after all, nearly seventeen. Larry had been drunk so many times at that age that it was fine. He knows Connor isn't an alcohol man, though. He know that much, at least.

“In a sense.” Larry allows. “Your mother isn't.”

Connor huffs a laugh and picks at the peeling polish on his nails. Zoe’s doing, he’s sure. They'd been vaguely friendly to each other before setting out for this particular Christmas party.

“Sounds about right,” he agrees.

Larry takes a look around. There's no one else out here. Too cold for anyone else to braves the balcony for a cigarette break or a moment of privacy. “There a reason you're playing chicken with hypothermia out here?”

Connor shrugs, looking more reluctant to have this conversation than his bored tone suggests. “Seems more pleasant than talking to any more of your associates.” He informs him, stiffly.

Larry tries not to feel hurt by that. “Alright then.” He says, turning. “Try not to catch anything nasty.”

He's almost all the way to the door back inside when Connor yells after him, “Hey, dad?”

Larry turns, narrowing his eyes, “Yes?”

“I've always wondered, and it just occurred to me to ask. Who's that woman in you and mom's wedding photos?”

He wonders how to answer. Someone yells happily inside. Connor watches him, carefully. “An old friend. We both moved on with our lives, but she was important enough at the time to both your mother and I that she be there.”

Connor nods to himself. “Alright.” It doesn't seem to have satisfied his curiosity. Larry lets it go, anyway.

~

He's in the living room, awake deep into the night. Zoe hasn't come home yet. Connor’s on house arrest. Yesterday, Cynthia dragged him out of a drug den.

The front door opens, Larry’s on his feet immediately.

Before he can even open his mouth, another voice sounds, this time from the stairs.

“What kind of time do you call this?” Asks Connor, walking into view as Zoe starts. She closes the door and rolls her eyes when she realises it’s Connor.

“What do _you_ care, junkie?” Zoe spits back. She's swaying. She's _drunk_ , god knows how. Larry doesn't move. They haven't noticed him.

Connor rolls his eyes. He's in withdrawal, which means he's shaking pretty much all the time, but he still manages to look nonchalant. “I'm your brother, do I need a reason to care?”

“My _brother_ are you?” She giggles. There is no humour. “You haven't been acting like it.”

Connor hold suo his hands in surrender. “I'm bad at everything.”

“That isn't news.” Zoe says. She's wearing a shirt with sleeves so long Larry can see the sides of her bra. Her hair is half fallen out of its ponytail. There's glitter smeared on her cheek. Where the hell has she been? She moves to make for the stairs, and Connor steps in her way. “Get out of my way, asshole.”

“Where were you?” He asks, concern in his voice.

“What does it matter?” She asks, and then sways dangerously. “You're not the boss of me.”

“Yeah,” Connor agrees, and raises his eyebrows. He looks like he'll, truly. “Yeah, but you're drunk, and I bet for the first time, too.”

She snorts and rolls her eyes.“Get out of my way.”

“Zo-” he begins, reaching for her shoulder.

Zoe immediately flinches back a step and smacks his hand away. _“Don't call me that.”_ She snarls, suddenly on the defence.

“What the fuck else am I supposed to call you?” Connor responds, volume in his voice.

“Shut the fuck up! Do you wanna wake up mom and dad?” She moves to walk past again, but he catches her biceps and holds her in place. “Let me go, Connor.”

“You can't be doing this.” He tells her, quietly, almost too quiet for Larry to hear.

“You're one to talk.” Zoe tells him, but she's less vicious now. The look in Connor’s eyes throws Larry back in time to that day by the creek when Larry crashed the plane and Connor just wanted to make Zoe happy again, so he jumped in after it.

Despite his faults, he still loves her.

“I know, I'm a hypocrite,” Connor allows, “but if there's gonna be a family fuck-up, it's gonna be me.”

“Gee thanks.” Zoe laughs, humourless once more. “What I needed was extra pressure to be perfect in this family.”

Connor swallows, and there's something heavy in his posture. “Zoe, I can't come back from this.” He whispers.

“What?” She asks, furrowing her brows.

“I'm in too deep.” Connor whispers. “There's no recovering. I'm never going to recover.”

“Don't say that.” Zoe snaps, and Connor releases her, stepping back. “Don't - what - what are you saying?”

He suddenly laughs a bit, smiling. Larry hasn't seen Connor laugh in probably years. “God, you're so drunk.” He says, and pokes Zoe’s shoulder. She swats at him.

“Connor.” She says, and her tone is serious. “Are you okay?”

“No. But neither are you right now.” Connor’s mood refuses to sober. “Come on, let me walk you to your room.”

Zoe tries to evade him again, but sways, causing him to steady her. Her next words come with irony, “I don't need you to.”

“Yeah, you do, if you don't want to be caught.” Connor tells her.

“You get caught all the time.” She complains, but lets him press a hesitant hand to the small of her back to usher her towards the stairs.

“Yeah, but it sucks, and trust me, you don't want to do that.” They walk up the stairs together and Larry sits down heavily on the couch. He wants to cry. He doesn't.

~

Larry hadn't been able to attend the funeral when his father died, too upset, too distraught and, eventually, withdrawn. He didn't have a say in what the headstone should look like and say, and his mother, rich and catatonic was swindled into buying a gaudy something with handles for flowers and engraving with chipping gold paint.

Larry’s never liked his father's headstone. He hopes when the time comes that Connor doesn't let Cynthia be talked into a headstone like this.

He'd never come here, to the edge of the cemetery with this big, dark, expensive headstone, except that it's the only place he truly feels his father. Only a few rows away, with a single grey headstone, the lettering chipped in, lies Heidi’s parents, lying together, in the same grave. It's a bit romantic, Larry thinks.

He doesn't think Heidi ever comes here. She lives in the house her parents had bought together, that's as close as she'll ever be to them.

But since Larry’s father's death, his mother fixed up their house enough for it to be totally unrecognisable from when he grew up. There are no traces of his father, except for the odd photo, and some annotations in old books. Other than that, he's gone from that place.

So, Larry comes to the cemetery, and sits down in front of the big headstone with dying flowers in the handles. “Hi, dad.” He says, and unscrews the cap of his drink bottle. He finds that since he promised never to cry again, a stupid thing that he's now too proud to take back, turning to a quick nip of alcohol is the closest he can get to emotional escape. “Been a while, I know, but I guess I need some advice.”

It looms, silently, in front of him, unanswering, apathetic. He probably looks quite pitiful. Larry doesn't care, at the moment. He takes a swig and wrinkles his nose as it burns going down. “I know you never got to see me get to Connor’s age - he's nearly eighteen - but I'm so lost. I don't know how to control him. I don't know how to get him to settle and let me in.”

Larry shuffles, crossing his legs like he isn't wearing expensive dress shoes, like Cynthia didn't spend an hour pressing all his suit pants last weekend. “He makes it so hard. He doesn't seem to care that he's only harming himself, with all of this trouble. The amount of times I've been called by his principal, by his teachers - by _the police._ I don't know what I've done wrong, dad. I need your help.”

God, the idea that one day he won't be able to bail Connor out, the idea that one day it won't just be Oxy, the idea that one day the soft pink scars on Connor’s wrists might be bright red and angry and long, shining while his face is dull, the same way Heidi’s was-

He can't even think about it. “He's in trouble. But I don't understand how to help him. Sometimes he's okay, he's quiet and unassuming, and grumpy, sure, but okay.” Larry looks up at the sky, squeezing some grass in his fist. “And then he just _loses_ it. He throws things, he yells. I don't know what's wrong, and Cynthia keeps babying him, keeps sending him to yoga retreats and shit like that, and I don't see it helping, so why should I waste my money on it?”

Larry closes his eyes, feeling dread well up in him. “The truth is, I'm terrified that this will be like Heidi, dad. I'm not sure that I ever told you what was wrong when I came here after she tried, but Heidi tried to kill herself right after Cynthia and I got married.” He doesn't like admitting that out loud. He never has. Not to the 911 responder, not to Cynthia, not to anyone. Recalling it is a dull pain that stabs slowly into him. “I had to clean the blood out of her bathtub, I had to carry her out to the ambulance, I had Cynthia talk her into therapy, I…”

Larry trails off, biting his lip. “Is that it? Is that what Connor needs? I don't wanna just assume and get locked out forever if I'm wrong, dad.” He can't ask Cynthia. Cynthia won't know. He can't ask Connor; Connor will go cold and scream at him. “I want to help him, but what if he takes it the wrong way?”

As always, there's no answer. Larry takes a swig of his drink. “I hope I'm wrong.” He says, quietly, almost like he wants to say it, but doesn't want it heard. The wind blows, his hair ruffles, he sighs.

~

He's not wrong. And that might be what hurts the most.

~

He remembers meeting Cynthia. It's pretty much the only thing he allows himself to remember, nowadays. Meeting Cynthia, on that warm summer day, right before Junior year. Her smile, her hair, her eyes.

Larry remembers holding Connor for the first time, holding his little boy who didn't cry, who just fussed and yawned and squeezed his eyes shut. He remembers Zoe, who he held more than Connor, because Cynthia was so withdrawn after her birth.

He remembers that voicemail he listened to in the middle of the night. That voicemail that made his blood run cold and his heart nearly shatter in his chest. The girl who pieced it together so long ago crying on the other end of the line.

He remembers shoving his way into Connor’s room, that night, and just staring, in shock. There was no way he had been too late, no way.

Larry doesn't like remembering anything but meeting Cynthia. It's the least painful memory he has. He sticks with remembering her, the girl she used to be, the Cynthia before all the bullshit. She was brilliant. Smart. Beautiful. Funny.

Obviously broken, but unwilling to let him see what was broken.

She had phases of interests, phases of obsessions, flitting from one subject to another, a certain book, or exercise, or food. He had indulged her in each and every one of them. Anything to make her happy.

Larry can't shake the feeling that he was a phase she'd grown out of.

What was it that Heidi said? _Through sea and storm, my friend, I'll bet you you'll marry her._ There was no way either of them knew it would be like this. He never knew how easily she'd disintegrate.

Larry guesses he has no room to talk, considering how frozen he feels, considering how dull the pain feels in him, considering that his son is dead, and he couldn't stop him the way he'd stopped Heidi.

He didn't _know_. _How_ did he not know?

He should have. He should have recognised it in Connor the way he'd seen it in Heidi, looking back. He should have agreed when Cynthia pleaded for help. He shouldn't have fought back, shouldn't have yelled, shouldn't have pushed so hard.

And now it's too late. His son is dead, and he was powerless to stop it.

~

At first, he's almost angry. Connor took himself out of the equation. Connor decided to die. Larry wasn't going to intrude on that. Everyone makes their own decisions. If Connor’s was to die, Larry wasn't going to question it. Larry was going to let him rest in peace.

But then the sadness comes, late at night, in the spare bedroom, curled onto the edge of the bed. He doesn't indulge it, but it's there.

The sadness rides on Evan Hansen’s coattails. Evan Hansen, stuttering and clammy handed in that office. Evan Hansen, quiet and curled in, so unlike Heidi at his age. Evan Hansen, telling him about a side of his son he hadn't seen since the day he fell into the creek and hit his head.

Sadness comes in, but so does closure, closure Larry needs to rid himself of the angry thoughts that came first. Larry holds Cynthia for the first time in maybe years, and his breath shudders, but it doesn't break, _he_ doesn't break. He can't break.

He’s got to be strong, he's got to lead them back to normal, even if Connor remains elusive, even dead and buried. Still out of reach, still slipping through his fingers when he grasps at him.

In Evan he can perhaps find the answer, in Evan perhaps he can heal.

He can do that much, right?

~

Evan’s friends, the ones running the website about Connor, decide to reopen the orchard. Larry doesn't say a word. Neither does Cynthia, apart from saying she thinks it's a great idea.

~

“Your dad must feel pretty lucky to have you.” Larry says, chuckling. He bats Evan’s shoulder, lightly, watches the kid stiffen.

He looks so much like Heidi it hurts. Of course, if Larry thinks too hard, he looks a lot more like Steven, like the man who had the gall, the nerve to abandon Heidi when she needed him most, to turn up again when the hard shit was over. This kid, who when Larry met him was so curled in on himself hardly smiled, allows himself to look so small, sometimes. Larry knows, now, how much space this kid can take up. He can take up an auditorium with his words of hope, he can take up half the internet, half of people’s hearts for a moment.

He's pretty sure he’s taking up more than half of Zoe’s heart, and he's trying his best not to feel shaky about that.

“Yeah,” Evan allows, coughing, “he does.”

“Good,” Larry says, and turns away. He can't forget how vulnerable he was a moment ago. Showing Evan all the things he had wanted to show Connor, acting like somehow Evan could take up that space as easily as he took up that stage in the high school gym, could somehow make things right where Larry had gone so wrong. Evan saw the cracks in the very foundations of Larry’s soul. He can't forget that.

“I don't know why I said that.”

Larry turns again. Evan is shuffling on the spot, staring at his feet like he's trying to find his words. Like he's trying to pluck up the courage to contradict himself.

“About my dad,” he clarifies when he looks up and sees Larry watching. “It's not true. My parents got divorced when I was seven. My dad moved to Colorado. He and my step-mom, they have their own kids, now. So. That's sort of his priority.”

Larry can only wonder why Heidi never told him that. He can only wonder how he never noticed Steven’s absence. Then again, he hasn't seen Heidi in years. Larry doesn't know how to communicate what he's thinking. Evan probably doesn't know that Larry knows his mother, despite the fact that she's in most of the dusty wedding photos still sitting on the mantle in the living room.

Instead, he clears his throat and picks up the baseball glove he's giving to Evan. “Shaving cream. Rubber bands. Mattress. Repeat. Got it?”

God knows this kid barely has time to break in a baseball glove with all the shit already going on in his life, but Larry can see just how much this conversation has meant to him, anyways. Evan take the glove from Larry, nodding. “Got it,” he says with a wide grin, and Larry thinks maybe everything can begin to look up, now.

~

He answers the door, because Cynthia’s rearranging the flowers on the dining table for the fourth time, and when she gets into a loop like that, he's found its best to leave her be. On the doorstep stands Heidi Hansen, wearing a brown leather jacket and bootleg jeans, looking older than he remembers her ever being.

She seems surprised to see him, somehow. Larry doesn't know whether to hug her or offer her a handshake. She feels like a near stranger inhabited by a ghost of his past. She's wearing so many bracelets on her wrists that it's hard to make doubt the long scars that run the length of her wrists. Larry knows how to spot them, though. He knows them intimately.

Heidi clears her throat and Larry looks up sharply. She offers him an awkward smile and digs a supermarket brand cheese out of her handbag. Larry takes it, knowing Cynthia’s going to serene it and try to politely throw it away.

“Hi,” she says, and Larry wonders, idly, how they strayed so far from grinning at each other on opposite sides of her bedroom window.

“Hey,” he responds, and holds the door open for her. “C’mon in. Cyn’s really frazzled so she’ll be here in a few minutes.”

Something in Heidi’s demeanour darkens and she nods. “Of course. She should take as much time as she needs.”

Larry sighs, quietly. Everyone's been like this, since everything with Connor happened. He closes the door and Heidi steps carefully into the entryway. She touches her index finger to the top of the wooden statue by the stairs and clicks her tongue.

“Can I take your jacket?” He asks her.

Heidi frowns down at herself and then smiles politely, “No need. I'll just get cold, anyway.”

Cynthia’s going to hate that. That's okay. Cynthia’s making this happen, and Larry hates it.

They cross, awkwardly into the living room, and Larry sets the cheese Heidi gave him on the already prepared cheese platter, so carefully set out by Cynthia. Heidi doesn't stop by the couches. She crosses the whole room and stands right in front of the mantle.

The dusty photographs sit neglected behind family portraits and school pictures, but they're there, and Heidi finds them. There's one of the three of them wedged in close together, where Heidi is actually laughing at something Cynthia said, and Larry is watching the two of them with adoration spread plainly across his face. He couldn't say what was said, now, but whatever it is immortalised this moment forever.

Heidi picks that one up, and blows the dust off it. She gives it a fond smile. “You know, when Cyn and I first viewed this house, she pointed to the mantle and said _that’s where we’ll put all the souvenirs of our adventures. All the pictures and the gifts.”_ Heidi gazes across the adventureless mantle. “Life is an adventure of sorts, right?”

She puts the picture back when the telltale slap of Cynthia’s flats echo across the kitchen tiles, coming closer and closer. When she appears in the doorway, Larry witnesses the bizarre display of Cynthia and Heidi briefly sizing each other up before briskly walking to meet each other and wrapping their arms around each other.

Larry cannot see this evening going anywhere good.

~

_Dear Connor Project community: Connor’s note is a message to all of us. Share it with as many people as you can. Post it everywhere. If you've ever felt alone like Connor, then please consider making a donation to The Connor Murphy Memorial Orchard. No amount is too small._

~

It's Connor’s suicide note. At least, that's what they're saying. It's hard to read, anyway. it was hard to read the first time, too. Hard because, knowing Connor, he wouldn't have written one in the first place.

_He wrote his his suicide note to Evan Hansen, because he knew his family didn't give a shit._

It came out of nowhere. Cynthia’s going insane. They've been sent death threats. People have doxxed them.

_Evan Hansen was the only one paying attention._

Larry doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to fix this. That's his job, he's supposed to fix everything.

_Zoe’s a stuck up bitch - Larry Murphy is a corporate lawyer who only cares about - Cynthia Murphy is one of these disgusting women-_

Larry makes Zoe exit the comments. “Stop looking at them,” he says, as Cynthia makes another frantic call in the kitchen. To who, Larry doesn't know. “They'll only make you feel worse.”

 _“Fuck the Murphy’s,”_ Zoe reads out, venom in her tone. She lets out a startled laugh, and turns the screen to face Larry. The comment displayed is anything less than humourous. _“Make them feel what Connor felt.”_

“Zoe,” Larry says, trying to take the laptop away. She shakes her head, ripping the laptop from his grip.

There's frantic knocking at the door, almost drowned out by the rain pounding on the roof. Larry would get up, but what if it's someone who's seen reason to hurt what's left of his family? He ignores it.

“They want us to feel how Connor felt? Good news!” Zoe laughs. “I'm feeling it! They've succeeded!”

“Zoe!” Cynthia shouts from the kitchen, looking distraught. “I'm trying to take a call, please be quiet!”

“They said keep ringing until we answer!” Zoe shouts back.

The knocking continues. Larry wants to get up and lock the door. But he feels immobile in his seat.

“Zoe, please!”

The front door opens, Larry stands. Evan comes slipping and sliding into the room, drenched, pale as a ghost, looking horrified. “The note-” he gasps. Larry nods.

“We’ve seen it.” He says. Cynthia storms over, phone call ended, apparently.

“Where did they get Connor’s note?” Cynthia demands, furiously, and Evan flinches.

“I don't know.” Larry tells her, hoping to soothe her, somewhat, knowing it won't work.

“I tried calling Alana, but she's not-”

Cynthia shouts over Evan, probably not seeing him. When she sees him it gets worse. Larry hasn't seen him this small in weeks. Months, really. Not since when they first met, and Evan wouldn't believe Connor had killed himself. He won't listen, he just keeps fighting, struggling harder and harder, and Larry can do nothing but fight Cynthia’s hurtful words, her blame, her exhaustion. He cannot take in Evan’s tiny confessions, puzzle pieces to the big picture.

Then it all comes out. A flood. A veritable disaster, devastating everything in its wake. It devastates even Evan, though perhaps only because he hates being caught in the middle of this web of lies. Zoe runs, and Cynthia runs after her, and Evan is left blubbering and stumbling over his words to Larry, to the man who held Evan when he was only a few days old, who doted on him when Heidi was still too weak to hold him herself.

Everything just keeps crashing, everything just keeps cracking and shattering around him, and Larry is just trying not to get cut.

Larry doesn't know why he lets Evan go. He should keep him here to explain further, to get the whole truth. But he is a statue, he is stone in his grief, in his disillusion, he is marble and granite and he cannot move to hurt or help this boy who has helped even as he devastated.

Larry Murphy does not cry, so he has no company as he climbs the stairs to his daughter's room, where what is left of his family weeps on her bed. They sit together until the rain stops, just recovering from the aftershocks.

~

It's a week after the truth came out, and Larry jumps the high fence that surrounds the Autumn Smiles Apple Orchard the way he used to, many years ago. It's more difficult than he remembers it being. He wouldn't have to jump the fence if he hadn't shut the damn place down, years ago.

It's a perfect day for a picnic.

Then again, The Connor Project is a few weeks away from reopening it, too, so who is he to complain?

He's the first one to their Hill, though he imagines Heidi isn't far behind him. She's always been fairly punctual.

He only has to wait a few minutes before the crunch of her boots on dry grass alerts him to her presence. She sits down beside him, without looking at him.

It's strange to think they aged. It's strange to think that everything after the night they got high here wasn't some elaborate dream. This is their lives, spread out in front of them, and Larry’s already made such a mess of his. He's sure Heidi thinks the same of hers.

“I didn't think you'd come.” She admits, quietly.

“And miss this view?” Larry asks, gesturing to the land stretched out for acres and acres around them. “Not for the world.”

Heidi laughs, quietly. “You always know what to say.”

“Not always.” He shoots back, immediately. Never, really. He never knows what to say.

There's a long pause between them. Heidi’s frame begins to shake a bit. “I think you saved my boy.” She says. The bracelets that have climbed up her wrists fall a bit, and Larry catches sight of her scars. He forces himself to look away.

“That's a nice sentiment.” Larry tells her. He hopes it isn't true. He hopes that boy saved himself. It's much too messy to leave your life in someone else's hands. “I wish I could've saved mine.”

This time when the tears come, he lets them.

“I'm sorry,” Heidi says to him, and pulls him into her arms.

He breaks a promise, and she tells him it's okay.

Everything is far from perfect, but it could be creeping closer to okay. So long as Larry allows himself to feel not okay.

  
**fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> God, oh my god, I can't believe I finished this series. When I didn't finish this one, I was worried I never would. Thankfully, inspiration came back, and so did the constant support and undying enthusiasm of my dearest friend Drew (@PrinceDrew on ao3, @princedrewwrites on Tumblr). Could not have done it without you.
> 
> As for you lot, I really hope you liked this. If you did (or didn't, I'm really not picky) please leave me some kudos and maybe a comment telling me about what you liked? I'd really appreciate it. Also, hmu on Tumblr, if you like, @nose-coffee. You'll get notifications when I post fic, and also get some nice funny posts as well as that.
> 
> Once again, thanks so much for reading!


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